DR. RICE: Good afternoon. First, I'll give a brief overview of
the President's schedule in New York this week and highlights from his
speech to the United Nations General Assembly, then I'll be happy to
take your questions.

President Bush and the First Lady will depart for New York tomorrow
morning. The President will proceed to the United Nations, where he
will call on U.N. General Assembly President Mr. Hunte and meet with
Secretary General Annan. The President will then deliver remarks to
the 58th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In his remarks, the President will discuss many of the challenges
the world faces today. He will call on the international community to
take action to make our world a safer and better place. The President
will stress the international community's opportunity and
responsibility to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan rebuild their
countries. He will also discuss the many ways the world will benefit
from an Iraq and Afghanistan that are free, prosperous, modern and
democratic.

The President will address the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, the greatest security challenge of our time. He will
outline current international efforts to stop the spread of dangerous
weapons, materials and technologies.

The President will also discuss the ongoing need to address
humanitarian crises, such as HIV/AIDS and famine. And he will call
upon U.N. and member states to do everything possible to stop
trafficking in persons, a modern-day form of slavery that claims
millions of victims, many of them young children.

After the speech, the President will hold a series of bilateral
meetings with world leaders. Those include President Aznar, of Spain;
President Chirac, of France; President Megawatti, of Indonesia; King
Mohamed VI, of Morocco; President Karzai, of Afghanistan.

On Tuesday evening, the President and Mrs. Bush will host a
reception for the heads of delegations at the New York's -- at New
York's Museum of Natural History. On Wednesday morning, the President
will hold another series of meetings, including a Caribbean leaders
breakfast, with Prime Minister Christie, of the Bahamas; Prime Minister
Mitchell, of Grenada; President Jagdeo, of Guyana and Prime Minister
Anthony, of St. Lucia; Chancellor Schroeder, of Germany; President
Kofor, of Ghana; President Musharraf, of Pakistan; President Chissano,
of Mozambique and Prime Minister Vajpayee, of India.

With that overview, I'm happy to take your questions.

Q Ambassador Bremer said again today he doesn't think Iraqis
are ready for self-government. The Iraqis outside said essentially the
same time. The French want to see a transition in about six to nine
months. Is there room for a compromise there? Is that reasonable?

DR. RICE: The most important thing is that now, having liberated
Iraq, that the transfer of sovereignty, which is a day that everybody
looks forward to, that the sovereignty transfer to the Iraqi people be
orderly and that it be done in a way that it's going to work.

This is a country that has been under brutal dictatorship for
decades -- and for the last almost 30 years, under the most brutal
dictatorship imaginable. And it's a country that has not had a
national conversation about its politics in more than 30 years. It's a
country that needs an orderly process to get to the writing of a
constitution, which, after all, will create the institutions on which a
new society in Iraq can be based. A constitution, after all, deals
with issues like the rights and protections of minorities, the
importance of the rights and protections of women. Those are the kinds
of issues that get institutionalized in a constitution.

So Ambassador Bremer has been talking about a seven-step plan:
constitution, followed then by elections and then by the transfer of
sovereignty. And it makes perfectly good sense to do this as soon as
possible, but to do it in a way that is responsible. And I think that
the -- as all of us have said, the French plan, which would somehow try
to transfer sovereignty to an un-elected group of people, just isn't
workable.

Q Is their timetable reasonable though, six to nine months?

DR. RICE: I think that what we want to do is we want to
concentrate on the steps that need to be taken: constitution,
elections -- national conversation, constitution, elections, and
transfer of sovereignty. That's -- those are the steps that need to be
taken. We'll see how long it takes. But I think everybody can be
assured; the establishment of sovereignty for the Iraqi people is the
goal of everybody, most especially of the United States. But I think
what you've heard from, now a number of Iraqi voices, is, let's do that
in an orderly way, so that it works.

Q Dr. Rice, as you know, President Chirac suggested the idea of
an abstention if a resolution did not meet French demands for an
instant -- or an immediate transfer of sovereignty. Is that a notion
the United States would accept, an abstention, or do you think it's
important to get full -- Security Council unanimity in the wake of last
year's failure to win support?

DR. RICE: France's decision will be France's decision, and I don't
think it's really appropriate for the United States to comment on
whether that would be -- obviously we'd like French support. But the
French will have to make their own determination.

The key, though, is that the resolution has to do what is best for
the future of Iraq and for the future of the Iraqi people; and,
frankly, for the tremendous responsibilities that the United States and
the coalition have taken on in liberating Iraq, and now trying to deal
with the reconstruction.

So a resolution that gives a proper role to the United Nations, one
like the President described, in which the United Nations will clearly
play a vital role, is a good thing. But it cannot be something that
tries to give premature sovereignty -- sort of sovereignty -- not real
sovereignty, sovereignty in principle, those ideas are just not going
to work. We've got to have an orderly process.

Q But are you willing to make concessions to avoid an
abstention? Is that an important political --

DR. RICE: I think we're going to put forward the best resolution
that we possibly can that obviously has taken into consideration the
concerns of others. But it's going to be a resolution that preserves
the ability of the coalition to do what needs to be done on behalf of
the Iraqi people, on behalf of the region, that recognizes the
tremendous contribution that the coalition has given, in terms of life
and in terms of treasure, and that recognizes that there is really only
one way to get this done, and that's in an orderly way.

Q The last time he went before the U.N. General Assembly, he
failed to get the war resolution authorized. Now he's asking for
assistance in the war's aftermath. Is the President going to take a
different approach with the U.N. General Assembly than last time? Has
he learned from that experience? Is he going to be different in tone
or tenor?

DR. RICE: Suzanne, the last speech resulted in Resolution 1441.
That's the strongest resolution that I think the Security Council
passed in the entire 12 years of dealing with Saddam Hussein. So the
President's speech in the General Assembly last year rallied the world
to finally face up to the fact that Saddam Hussein was not going to
disarm without a lot of pressure of the international community. And
1441 gave to the international community more tools to try to get the
disarmament of Iraq. And it put the onus on Iraq.

Now, not everybody agreed with the timing of the decision to
enforce the serious consequences that were foreshadowed in that
resolution -- foreseen in that resolution. But let's remember, when
the President went to the United Nations, the sanctions were in
shambles. They were -- they were not working. Saddam Hussein was
getting $3 billion a year in illegal revenues to pursue his palaces and
his weapons of mass destruction programs. Saddam Hussein was still
holding children in prisons and holding, from the world's view, 300,000
people in mass graves. Saddam Hussein was still strutting around the
streets of Baghdad threatening his neighbors and threatening his
people. He's gone. That was an enormously successful visit to the
United Nations last year.

Q Dr. Rice, what will the President say specifically tomorrow
about the U.N. resolution, about giving that -- what you call that
vital role to the U.N.? Will he outline what changes, perhaps, he sees
the U.N. -- an expanded role for the U.N.?

DR. RICE: The President is leaving to discussions that we're
having -- and, frankly, discussions he will also have with his
colleagues this week about how to define a proper relationship between
what the United Nations can offer, what the Coalition Provisional
Authority must get done, and what we all must do on behalf of the Iraqi
people. So the speech doesn't go into detail on that matter.

It does, however, call to action the entire international community
to recognize the tremendous opportunity we now have with a liberated
Iraq, and by the way with a liberated Afghanistan, as well, to change
the course of the history here of the Middle East, and to change the
course of a place that's sitting in the center of the Middle East, has
been nothing but a source of trouble during Saddam Hussein's rule.

When you think about it, Kuwait no longer has to fear being called
a province of Iraq. Saudi Arabia no longer has to fear the tensions
that the Iraqis placed on the kingdom. The Middle East doesn't have to
-- the Middle East, proper, Israel and the Palestinian Territories
don't have to fear the $25,000 payments to suicide bombers to encourage
the breaking up of the peace process.

So the President is going to talk about the tremendous right
decision that was made in finally getting rid of this terrible
government, building weapons of mass destruction, having used weapons
of mass destruction -- now, what Secretary Powell said when he was
Halabja, that, if anybody doubted Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass
destruction, just look at the devastation of these people in Halabja.
That man is gone. And the President will talk about that.

But he will not get into the details of how the U.N. might play a
role. He will, by the way, also acknowledge that the United Nations is
already playing an important role in Iraq, in immunization of children,
in the World Food Program, in Afghanistan and the things that the U.N.
is doing there; and that the U.N. has paid a price for it, because this
wonderful humanitarian work on behalf of the Iraqi people was rewarded
with a horrific bombing by terrorists and by Baathists who want to stop
the progress in Iraq.

Q Dr. Rice, just a quick one on Korea. Will the North Korean
crisis be discussed at all? With whom? And will it be discussed in
the context of the spread of weapons of mass destruction, famine, and
humanitarian abuses?

DR. RICE: I think we think of this in terms of proliferation
concerns and problems that we've begun to have with countries that sign
on happily to the NPT and then violate it. And the President will have
discussions with President Hu about the North Korean issue, as he did
today. He had a drop-by with the Foreign Minister of China. He had an
opportunity to thank the Chinese for the constructive role that China
has been playing in arranging the six-party talks and being an active
participant in the six-party talks.

What the President has done in insisting that this is not a crisis
between North Korea and the United States, but between North Korea and
certainly the regional players, but also the world, is to show the
North Koreans that there is no way out but to give up their nuclear
ambitions. And this time, if and when North Korea can be convinced to
give up its nuclear ambitions, we will be in a position of enforcing
that by the attention and the buy-in of China, Russia, South Korea,
Japan, and the United States. That's a very different picture than
where we were with the agreed framework in 1994. And the President is
very grateful to China for the role that it's played.

Q There's some talk in diplomatic circles, Condi, that the real
issue here for the French is guarantees vis-a-vis their economic
interests, particularly oil contracts. Can you speak to that?

DR. RICE: I can't really speak to the motives of the French
government in that regard. I assume that just like everybody, I would
hope that they would want to see an open and transparent economy in
Iraq, in which governments -- in which business can compete and find a
way to invest. I might note in that regard that very big progress was
made when the Governing Council agreed to a very aggressive plan, a
very ambitious plan for opening up the Iraqi economy. Of course, the
oil sector will not be, at this stage, there for foreign investment.
But I'm sure that just like everybody else, people want to see the oil
sector work. And they'll want to invest.

Q I would assume, though, that they're making you aware of
these concerns as you go through the negotiations over the resolution?

DR. RICE: I'm not aware of specific discussions of that kind,
John. But obviously, there are people who did business in Iraq
before. I would hope that they would look favorably upon creating
conditions now for a free Iraq in which the benefits of any business
that is done in Iraq might actually benefit the Iraqi people rather
than Saddam Hussein.

Q Going back to Suzanne's question, the President did say prior
to the war that the U.S. was prepared to act with or without the United
Nations. So the question is, will he adopt a similar approach today?
And does he feel that the U.S. is prepared to handle the aftermath
without the United Nations?

DR. RICE: Well, the United States and the coalition are handling
the aftermath. We are reconstructing. Life is getting back to
normal. Eighty percent of the country, roughly, is stable, with no
particular difficulties. There are problems in the Baathist triangle.
There's no doubt about that.

But if you review what has happened since the fall of this brutal
dictator, one has to recognize that a lot of the things that were
thought to be potential crises, like humanitarian crises in Iraq, the
food distribution stayed up and running. So there was no humanitarian
crisis. Potential tensions with Iraq's neighbors in the north simply
didn't come to fruition; that the oil fields would be torched and
unworkable simply didn't come to fruition.

So there was a lot of progress made in the very early stages, and
that progress is extending. We just had the Minister of Electricity
here for the new Iraqi Cabinet of ministers, and his point was that,
yes, this is a difficult reconstruction, because they're recovering not
from the war but from 30 years of mismanagement. He described a
situation in which the country had only a small percentage -- maybe 50,
55 percent of the actual generating power needed for the whole country,
but Saddam Hussein forced all of that power to be used in and around
Baghdad, so it looked like the country had electricity. But when you
tried to go -- a more even distribution, the rest of the country had
been starved.

So we are dealing with the problems. However, we've gotten very
positive remarks, I think, from just about everybody, that the
international community recognizes the importance of success -- indeed,
rapid success -- in investing in the reconstruction of Iraq, that
people want to be a part of that. And I believe that the President
will find that he's got many more partners than the many partners that
we have. And we're making progress on a resolution, and we'll see.

Q Can I just follow up? Are we prepared to continue
contributing, though, at the same level that we are right now, both in
terms of troops and monetarily?

DR. RICE: Well, the United States has set out to contribute, in
terms of the financial contribution, $20 billion to invest in the
highest priority tasks that are therefore reconstruction. It's best to
think of it as an investment, not as foreign assistance, but as an
investment, so that the Iraqi economic infrastructure can get up and
running, because this is a country that has a lot of resources, a lot
of capacity, and once it -- that investment is made in the
infrastructure, it should pay back many, many times over.

The international community, we believe, and all of the signals
are, that the international community will be prepared to contribute to
that reconstruction, because Iraq is going to be an important country
in the future, and everybody should be a part of that. And we're
getting very positive assessments from everyone that they want to be
involved in that reconstruction. I also would note that we would
expect the international financial institutions to be involved as well,
at some time in the near future.

Q Dr. Rice --

DR. RICE: Yes, Russia.

Q Russia, right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Rice. If I may, I
would like to jump ahead to the Camp David summit, and ask you what you
expect from that? If not, what is the best contribution Russia can
make in Iraq do you think?

DR. RICE: The Russians have been constructive in discussing the
resolution. We appreciate that very much. It's been a constructive
attitude. I think that the President -- President Putin and the
President will certainly discuss what Russia might be able to do in the
reconstruction. Russia has a long history there. I think Russia will
want to be involved in the reconstruction.

But this is also going to be an opportunity to talk about a broad
range of issues, because the United States and Russia have both a deep
and broad relationship. The war on terrorism, in particular, has been
something that has deepened the U.S.-Russia relationship, and I think
they'll have a good deal to talk about that. There will also be a good
deal to talk about economic relations and I'll tell you more about it
as we get toward the end of the week.

Q Just a follow-up to John's question about the new economic
program which does allow for 100 percent foreign ownership. Why does
the U.S. think that it's a good idea for such sensitive sectors, like
the telecommunications and media to be allowed by foreigners, when
that's not even allowed here?

And secondly, the mood in September of 2003 is very different from
-- -- around the world about -- the attitudes about the United States
is very different from the mood in September of 2001. And I'm
wondering how much you're concerned about that, and what -- given that
that mood, because of the souring of attitudes, has made it more
difficult to get financial assistance for the reconstructions, what you
can do about changing the mood that then allows political leaders to be
more willing to pony up money.

DR. RICE: We are not where we were in the great outpouring of
sympathy that came from what happened to us on September 11th in 2001.
It would be unrealistic to expect that that was going to be the case
from now to time immemorial for American foreign policy with a range of
countries.

The United States and this President, in particular, has taken a
position that we have a lot of global challenges, and we have to meet
them. We can't sweep them under the rug. We have to take them on.

Now, some of those global challenges that we've taken on have
gained great applause: for instance, the AIDS initiative that the
President had; the Millennium Challenge Account, which increases
American development assistance by 50 percent over the next three
years, the famine relief. The efforts that the President has made in
the Middle East in the Palestinian-Israeli situation -- people have
been supportive.

So a lot of these efforts have been very much applauded. The
President has taken some very difficult situations and turned them into
multilateral successes. If you look at where we were just a few months
ago with Iran, there were a lot of countries that didn't want to
believe that Iran actually might be violating its obligations under the
NPT and building a military program under cover of civilian nuclear
use. Now you have an IAEA report that says that, at best, what Iran is
doing has raised a lot of suspicions. And the United States succeeded
in bringing all countries together around an October 31 deadline for
Iran to come clean about what its doing.

If you look at where we were with North Korea, we had an agreed
framework which North Korea was violating. And the North Koreans were
blackmailing everybody into accepting their nuclear program. The
President has brought together five other countries now, into a
multilateral forum that says to North Korea, you've got to give up your
nuclear ambitions.

So this President has been very -- Afghanistan is another example,
where even countries that may not have agreed with us on Iraq are
stepping up their efforts in Afghanistan, like the Germans, who are
taking a more active role in Afghanistan.

So our relations have never been better with Russia, our relations
have never been better with China. This is an extremely successful
policy of reaching out and getting allies on the most important
issues.

Now, on Iraq, yes, there were some differences. But I think if you
go around that room and you ask any but the most hardened, predictable
ones, are you glad that Saddam Hussein is gone; are you glad that the
Iraqi people no longer have to fear children's prisons and mass graves;
are you glad that his neighbors no longer have to fear invasion; are
you glad that we will now find and be able to account for what became
of his weapons of mass destruction; are you glad that he can't use them
again; I think you will find that there is agreement that the world is
better off with Saddam Hussein gone.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't challenges ahead. But I
think it would be interesting if anybody wants to argue that this has
not improved security in the world.

Q The ownership question?

DR. RICE: Oh, yes, sure, sorry. What the governing council agreed
to was the most open profile -- economic profile that is there in the
Middle East.

Look, this argument about whether open economies that are open to
investment are better than centrally planned economies was solved about
the time that I left the Soviet field, because the Soviet Union
collapsed. Okay, it's very clear what works. State-owned,
centrally-planed, closed economies don't work. Look around the world
at how hard people are working to get foreign investment. Look around
the world at how hard countries are working to change their laws and
their rules -- their rule of law and their infrastructure so that
foreign investment can come in.

Iraq is going to start out in a much more favorable position
because it will not have to unravel years and years and years of bad
practices. Eventually there will be an elected Iraqi government. I'm
sure that that elected Iraqi government will take a look at where they
are. And there may be adjustments here and there. But let's realize
what's happened in Iraq, they have an opportunity, with low taxation,
with liberal foreign investment laws, with a very open economic
structure, to leapfrog the entire region once the infrastructure is
rebuilt and once the security situation improves, because they are
going to have such a much stronger investment climate than anything
around them, that unless the rest of the region starts to move in that
direction, they're going to find Iraq just sprinting past them.

Q Is the President's credibility undercut in any way by the
fact that the weapons of mass destruction have not been disclosed in
Iraq? How will he address that in his speech tomorrow? And do you
remain confident those weapons will be found, or do you think they've
somehow been spirited away, or that --

DR. RICE: Well, let me first say that David Kaye has an orderly
process for mining the miles of documentation, the hundreds, even
thousands of interviews, that need to be done, the physical evidence
that needs to be gathered to understand precisely the status of Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction, the status of the programs, what became of
unaccounted for weapons stockpiles.

If you remember the U.N. reports were about large numbers of
unaccounted-for stockpiles. We'll now be able to find out what became
of them. But let me be very clear, what we find there will establish
precisely what was going on with Iraq's programs. What we went in with
a view toward was a view that was shared by intelligence agencies
around the world, by three American administrations, and by the United
Nations. There was nobody who knew anything about Iraq who believed
that Saddam Hussein had destroyed all of his weapons of mass
destruction, that he simply didn't have any. And it was just kind of a
joke on the world that he wouldn't say that he had destroyed his
weapons of mass destruction.

This was a dangerous regime that had used weapons of mass
destruction, that was still pursuing weapons of mass destruction, and
that had large unaccounted for stockpiles. That is a position that was
credible at the time. It is a position that is credible now. And now
we're able to do what the U.N. inspectors had hoped to be able to do
under Resolution 1441, were actually never permitted to do because
Saddam Hussein was still in power and intimidating people and keeping
people from telling the truth. So the President will simply note that
we have an effort underway to hunt this down. And, yes, I think we
will we find that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction can be
accounted for, and we'll know the truth.

Q When will Kaye's report will be public?

DR. RICE: David Kaye is not going to be done with this for quite
some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be
interim reports. I don't know when those will be, and I don't know
what the public nature of them will be.

Okay, last one.

Q Condi, is the dwindling support shown in the polls for the
Iraq war from Americans undercutting your ability to negotiate this
resolution?

DR. RICE: Americans are solidly behind this war, and they're
solidly behind their President on this war. They're solidly behind our
forces. And the American people, I believe, understand that when the
President said all the way back on September 20th that this was going
to be a long war against terrorism, and that we had to fight it on the
offensive, that the American people understood this.

It is hard. The images that are coming from Iraq are hard images
to see. And the President mourns every death of an American soldier
that happens on any given day. The large picture, though, is that we
have a job to do in Iraq. We have a job to finish in Iraq. And this
President is resolute. And we're going to finish it.

It would be a good thing if the American people were able to see
more of the progress that is being made in Iraq. And the two ministers
who were here today gave tremendous testimony to what it now feels like
to be ministers in a liberated Iraq, not forced by Saddam Hussein to
take the power and divert it from the Shia areas in Basra as political
punishment up to the Sunni areas around Baghdad. The Minister of
Public Works is somebody whose family was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein
when she was 14 years old. She's now there trying to do something good
on behalf of her country people. Students finished their exams. There
are 60,000 Iraqis involved in their own security. This is a very
positive story.

And I will just say this, you cannot look at the reconstruction of
a country like Iraq in a daily news cycle. This is a long-term,
historical change in the way that this region will operate. And when
that changes for the better, which it will be, America and the world
are going to be safer. Because if the Middle East does not transform,
we will do everything that we can to defend ourselves here in America
against terrorism. But we've got to do something about a region which
has created ideologies of hatred that lead people to fly airplanes into
buildings.

The President understands that that's a long-term commitment. But
we've made a wonderful down payment on it in the progress that's been
made in Iraq thus far. Thank you very much.

Q On the Israeli fence --

Q On Israel -- on Israel?

Q On your meeting with Weissglas have you made progress toward
resolving those disputes?

DR. RICE: We've said the same things to the Israelis that we have
been saying, that this wall does not really -- is not really consistent
with our view of what the Middle East will one day have to look like,
two states living side-by-side in peace. We understand that they have
some security concerns, and that it is extremely important, if it is
going to be built, that it not intrude -- that, as much as possible
that it not intrude on the lives of the Palestinians, and most
importantly that it not look as if it's trying to prejudge the outcome
of a peace agreement. We have been talking to the Israelis, it's been
in a friendly spirit. And we had good meetings today. The Israelis
have some things that they want to go back and look at. And I think
we'll probably get together again. Thank you.